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Saturday, 24 March 2012

I had a rebellious moment when creating this week's post. I have one - ONE! - article of clothing which exactly fits the colour, but it is a horrible, ancient, freebie blouse and I revolted at the thought of wearing it or even attempting to create a decent outfit around it. It shall go in the bin forthwith! Oddly enough, I seem to have all sorts of pretty green clothes, and even found several outfits that would have done for avocado - not that I regret my Bomberfly, but what was I doing when I researched my wardrobe that week?! I swear my inventory hides things. But nary a (decent) tea green article did I have, though the challenge has given me a desire to find a pale green kimono. [I just checked the marketplace and found some absolutely gorgeous ones at Falln and Milky but... they cost more than my premium wage.] So I'm afraid I had rather to cheat and tint a couple of things, though at least I am (barely) wearing clothes this time ;)

Having decided to go with a tintable swimsuit, and wanting a bit more to stretch out the colour, I thought I would work with the head fins which didn't quite make it into last week's post, and a skin I'd considered and rejected for avocado but would make a good contrast here and also suit the fins. I had to use the scary shark grin with this skin, and then I also had to pop on the Gator boots I got at the Happy When It Rains event last autumn, which tone beautifully with the skin. At this point the developing theme was too obvious to ignore and a whip completed the setup! For once I'm not wearing prim ears, just the smallest ears the system shape will allow, because lizards don't have external ear structures and the fins would get in the way.* I didn't want to cover them entirely as I have a sort of science OCD and the eardrums would naturally be placed before the fins. You can't really hide ears with an alpha mask unless you also have hair, because it leaves gaping holes through the middle of your head, but at some point I'm going to make a dumbbell prim to sit inside my head and take care of that issue. I also have a tail but it refused to get into shot.

*No they don't have breasts either but anyone can get subcutaneous silicon implants and the mammalian species find it hard to relate to a Mistress without these peculiar front lumps.

~ Tea Green ~

Mistress Fledhyris Relaxes After a Long Day

Sips her bowl of green tea...

Aaaah, refreshing!

I could have written a story about just WHAT I was doing all day that led to my need for a relaxing bowl of tea, but... I intend to keep this blog PG };=8~~<

CREDITS

Props:Rustica ~ The Crooked Cottage, belonging to my dear friend Remus Lykin (I snuck in and photostudioed your house all up while you were out :)

Something Wicked ~ Throne of Jahannam

Green Tea by Karamel Madison (copy/trans)

Unique Needs! *Twisted* Bone whip

Avatar:*SFS* Reptilian green-light skin (Starfuker skin line now owned by Rue)[ContraptioN] Shark GrinDMMDI Forked Tentacle TongueHead fins modded from Grendel's Children Elder Uthgolian Dragon (canyon-white) - you just know Grendel's are going to crop up when I need mod parts!

Monday, 19 March 2012

You know, I never would have said that blue was one of my strong colours, but now I've pulled off three different shades - clearly, I collect more than I recollect! I really like this shade so it's not too surprising I had a few items. I got the skin when it was on sale, and I just adore the whole range so I got a bit grabby. The hair was one of an elemental pack, and I love anything with an elemental theme; and the dress was just so beautiful I couldn't resist, even though at the time I thought I'd never get a chance to wear it. I think it looks suitable for a mediaeval Irish Fae at court, don't you? The feet are a recent purchase (they come in various shades of grey, for tinting) and so are the horns. In a way, it's a bit of a mish-mash of an avatar, and I'm not quite sure what she is - I wasn't sure whether to go with sea or sky and my final location choice seems just as undecided, what with floating sky jellyfish! She is, however, indubitably blue. I don't have as much time to create these posts as I did at the start; my little boy is going through a difficult phase and needs my attention; so this was quite a rushed colour and in the end I went with the hair although I'd been playing with making some head-fins. A project I'll come back to some time, maybe. I didn't want her to look too much like last week's mermaid, despite a (semi) watery theme.

And for anyone still wondering why it's St Patrick's Blue and not green, although green is now the traditional colour of Ireland, St Patrick himself was always associated with blue and you will see it a lot in Irish heraldry. There was never any one specific shade, though it was said to be 'sky blue' so I'd have said this was a little dark, but *shrugs* :)

Sunday, 11 March 2012

FINALLY!!! A colour I have a whole avatar already kitted out for. Surprising, you might think, but when I decided to make a mermaid, I wanted to do something a bit different from my usual golds and reds. I know I already posted a mermaid for Coral but she was made up from scratch for the Colour Challenge. This mermaid has been around in various incarnations since I started SL, as it is one of my 'fundamental' avatars - the ones I really enjoy wearing and tinkering with and continually improving. I think this one has bits and pieces from at least four different merstores, plus other parts to suit, so she is entirely unique.

Naturally I couldn't just put on a 'Here's one I made earlier!' outfit and be done; I have to make this a real challenge and bug at least two of my friends and family to death before I'm happy. So I had to look for a really lovely and suitable photo-location, and then when I finally found that, I had to up the ante and decide to take pictures of me swimming with dolphins. Well I had just bought the thing, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try it out. I don't mean to belittle the product, and I did get it working in the end, but man did that dolphin cause me trouble... When it first rezzed, it promptly sank to the sea floor and lay there on its back, thrashing spastically and squeaking continually like a car alarm. Fortunately I'm friends with the creator, a fun and lovely person, and she helped me sort it out. I did find that, sadly, you can't use such things to cross sims, because the scripts reset on sim entry and you need to set a memorised swimming route, so it just forgets what you'd programmed in. But for swimming around inside one sim, or indeed just leaving to frolic in the waves like a wild dolphin, it does very nicely and finally I got my pics. Actually I got rather too many pics for this post, as I really didn't want to leave out the dolphin after all the trouble I went to..!

So, here's my Aquamarine Mermaid:-

~ I'm a fishy girl, In a virtual world

Love my life in water, I'm the ocean's daughter

You can brush my hair, and pose me everywhere

Just don't let my scales dry, or then I will cry! ~

Homage to AQUA ~ "Barbie Girl" (Sorry just couldn't resist... This ought to be the theme song for SL really, and OMG I just played the original and she's reading My Little Sea Horse under the dryer!!!)

Twirl

Reflection

Sparkling Seafloor

Hello jellyfish!

Head detail

Bracelet detail

Swimming with Dolphin

I didn't want to get carried away and picspam so I made a film-reel type montage of my dolphin shots; to see them in larger size, visit my Flickr page :)

Bewildebeest Moby Bracelet & Amphitrite Hair Ornament (store sadly closed, but such amazing jewellery I had to show the bracelet in detail)*TSM* Laurel of Water from the Elemental Manes pack (the pearl headdress)Mother o' pearl knotted bead strand by Fallingwater Cellardoor of Shiny Things (but I think this was a freebie from the Gnubie Store)I really should have been wearing my customary L&E sun & moon arm rings but forgot to put them on >.<

Shout-out for this week's location:I was incredibly lucky to stumble on this location. Not just one but twenty eight sims (28! - that's 7 whole servers!)make up the Sea of Fables, as part of the Linden Public Works project. Most of them look empty and are great for sailing; but if you dive down under water, every single one has been carefully landscaped with undersea plants and creatures, sunken temples and hidden treasures. There is even a kraken! Above water, there is a sprinkling of islands, beautifully decorated with Greek architecture, or statues and temples right out of the ancient Greek legends. There is even a Mount Olympus which you can climb, and sit at the top in a gilded chair eating the food of the gods. Most (all?) of the sims have a rezzable area where you can put your sailing boat, or dolphin, but in general are just a fantastic place to explore. I added the windlight settings given above for that special Mediterranean atmosphere. Discovering this huge set of sims, here for no other purpose than as a public place of beauty, has made me forgive LL many sins. I heartily recommend you go explore, and I was thinking of putting up some photos but don't want to spoil the surprises ;)

Sunday, 4 March 2012

HEALTH WARNING: If your avocado is this colour, do not eat it. It is over-ripe and well on the way to being rotten.

I don't know who labels these colours, I know it's not Luna's fault... Anyway, this week's shade puts me more in mind of military uniforms than tasty fruit, and after seeing Rudh's post I think I may have been unduly influenced... I had a great time with this one, but yet again I'm afraid it's not so much a fashion post as Fun With Avatars.

In keeping with the disgusting way LindenLabs have decided to treat Third Party Viewer developers lately (read about it on the Phoenix/Firestorm blog if you don't know what I'm talking about) I dedicate this post to all the fantastic coders who work for free to bring us new features and better clients than LL provide. Now, to put matters in a nutshell, LL want them to work for them for free, which is an altogether different and disgraceful matter, and entirely contrary to the principle of Open Source Code. So my challenge response this week is an attack on the cowardly (and lazy, greedy and unprincipled) bullies at LL, as represented by the tank (appropriately enough from the library) by the heroic avatars of Second Life, as represented by myself. We may be mere insects to the powers of LL but this insect is fighting back!!!

¡Viva la Revolución

Butterfly Bomber: Mission is Go!

Target Acquired: Bombs Away!

Bombing Run

Incoming!

Direct Hit!

Butterfly: 1, Tank: 0

CREDITS:

Butterfly by (you guessed it) Grendel's Children - modified by me with the colour and addition of wingspots. Connoisseurs of British history will recognise the distinctive target patterns (roundels) painted on the wings of RAF fighter planes in WWI and WWII.

Tank ~ Vehitar Clark from inventory Library (no avatars were harmed during the making of this post; I put the tank together on the ground).

Bomb by me; it doesn't actually do anything but you can have one if you want it;Explosions by Pamagester Darracq (a friend and wizard builder/scripter), assisted by Karras Cthulhu who set off the explosives while I fiddled with the camera (note to self: do something interesting in a sandbox like exploding tanks, you will be sure to attract attention!)

Location ~ Curious sandbox (building rights only for group members) because sand dunes put me in mind of a desert which makes a suitable war zone, and it had to be somewhere I could rez stuff. Default windlight settings.